Lent is, by design, the heaviest time of the church year. It is a time of repentance and of discipline, a time of contemplation. As some of you are already aware, as I had announced on Wednesday at our service, and as noted in our bulletin for today, I have received a call to Redeemer Lutheran in St. Thomas, Ontario, so it is a time for me to spend in extra consideration and contemplation, and I do ask for your prayers on that account.
In the midst of this contemplation and consideration, in the midst of the heaviness of the recurring message of repentance, what a joy it is, therefore, to have such a joyful reading for this morning–the good news of salvation, as expressed by our Lord Jesus to the Pharisee Nicodemus.
Nicodemus is evidence that not all Pharisees were bad apples. Sometimes we get that impression from reading through the Scriptures, that the Pharisees were all a bunch of hypocrites, who thought of themselves more highly than they ought. Many of them were like this. Nicodemus wasn’t. We see Nicodemus in a couple spots in the Gospels. In John 7, after Jesus calls Himself the Living Water at the Feast of Tabernacles, we see Nicodemus interceding for Jesus, trying to get him a fair hearing before the Sanhedrin. After Jesus was crucified, Nicodemus, along with Joseph of Arimathea, makes sure that Jesus gets a proper and decent burial, instead of the usual method of disposing of the corpses of the crucified.
What these other passages indicate is that what Jesus had to say to Nicodemus here took root and bore fruit in his heart and life. My prayer is that as we consider this passage this morning, it would also take root and bear fruit in each of our hearts and lives!
Consider the dialogue between Jesus and Nicodemus. Nicodemus starts it out politely, with a genuinely humble approach: “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” This sounds good. But then Jesus cuts to the chase, as it were, and responds rather harshly. “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” It doesn’t really seem to make sense. It seems to be a non-sequitur. But Jesus knew what the Pharisees were looking for, what they were questing after. The goal of the Pharisee was to get the moral life of the people of Israel straight so that Messiah could come and God’s kingdom be re-established.
Jesus knew this. As such, He pointed out how that comes about–you have to be born again, born from above. The little Greek word anothen has no English equivalent–it means again, anew, from above, all at the same time. And probably all of that is meant in this as well. In order to be part of Christ’s kingdom, it all has to start new again. Everything has to start new.
It’s kind of neat that Lent happens during the winter in these northern climes. We get a very visual picture of the whole starting-new dynamic. Like the snow covering the ground and making it white and free from any other vision, so we need to start anew. Like the snow melting in the spring to reveal the flowers and the grass, so we need to start anew.
We need to start anew because we too are like the Pharisees, wanting to patch over morals and lifestyles but not able to get at the true heart of the matter, not able to deal with the true and deepest problem of sin. And this new start has to come from above. No matter how hard we try to get things right, unless it is the Lord working in and through us, we’ll never quite get there, never quite make it.
The kingdom of God requires people to be able to see their king. One of the things we see time and again in the Old Testament is the utter fear which people have upon receiving a vision of God. His pureness, His holiness, destroys all impurity and unholiness. No mere repelling, but utter destruction. So the desire of the Pharisees to see the kingdom of God, which was good, was one which foundered on the very point which the Pharisees gave themselves credit for. The Pharisees couldn’t be perfect or holy. They tried, but they couldn’t do it. Even when all their actions were outwardly righteous to the eyes of others, their hearts and minds were still impure.
Our desire to see God’s kingdom needs to be tempered by the same realization. That’s how it goes. We might do all the right things as far as anyone else is concerned, but we too fall short of God’s glory, we too are unable to earn the right to be in God’s kingdom. Any thoughts or hopes that we have, within our power, the ability to choose to do the right thing or the smarts to be God’s people needs to be repented. “As it is written: ‘None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.’” (Romans 3:10-12 ESV)
But when the kingdom of God comes to us–that’s an entirely different story. It’s the only way it can work for people who can’t come to the kingdom. And this is what Jesus details for us in the next part of our reading. He needs to detail this because it’s something which doesn’t make sense. Nicodemus is wondering how it is possible for people to be born again. After all, you can’t crawl back into your mother’s womb.
So Jesus tells him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
This new way of the kingdom coming to us needs water and the Spirit–Baptism. What more beautiful picture is there of our utter inability before God if not the picture of a helpless infant being baptized into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? And the life it gives is not a fleshly life, but a spiritual life. This is necessary to enter the kingdom of God. True, Jesus had not yet instituted Baptism with His disciples at this point in His ministry, but He was certainly pointing in that direction. Water. Spirit. Life. Membership in the Kingdom. It’s impossible to understand how simple water and the Word can do such a thing as transfer you from death to life, but we have the word and promise of our Lord Jesus that it does exactly that. As Jesus told Nicodemus, people testify to what they have seen. As the only Son of God, Jesus is uniquely equipped to tell us what He has seen and what He knows of how the kingdom of God works. He knows and He’s seen it because that was where He started, and that’s where He is returning to.
The good news continues with Jesus’ reminding Nicodemus of some of Israel’s history. There was an incident in the time when Israel was wandering in the wilderness when they started to grumble against the Lord, and in response, the Lord sent an infestation of “fiery serpents” to attack the Israelites. But He also gave them a way of salvation–an image of the fiery serpent mounted on a staff, to which the people could look and be healed.
That’s how God works. He punishes, yet He heals. He chastises, yet He gives release. We sin, God gives a Saviour. God is faithful to us even when we are not faithful to Him, for in that water of baptism, we have His name placed on us, His life given to us. Though we may misuse it or even despise it, God does not give up on us, as long as we have life on this earth. He sent His Son to be lifted up on the Cross, so that all those who are plagued with the curse of sin, that curse which causes death in all who are so infected, may look to Him and live.
Finally, the Gospel for today ends with a word of hope. Hope for us who struggle and strive and suffer and hurt and wonder and worry in this broken, sin-filled world. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
This is why God gave Jesus, why He gave Baptism, why He gives the Lord’s Supper, why He gives and gives and gives and gives to His people. He gives to us so that we might not perish for all eternity, separated from God, but instead be connected to Him–to be His own, and live under Him in His kingdom in everlasting innocence, righteousness, and blessedness, as the Second Article’s catechism explanation says. The need to be connected to Him is why we have church, why we gather in God’s presence–yet without fear. We no longer need to be afraid of God destroying us, for we have the holiness of His one-and-only Son given to us through water and spirit.
Although our Alleluias are silenced during Lent, yet we can still give thanks to our God and Saviour that He has made a way for us to have freedom from our sin. We can thank God that He sent His only Son to be sin for us so that we might become His righteousness. We can live lives which demonstrate our thankfulness, by sharing the good news with our family and friends and neighbours, by showing unselfish love and kindness that stops people in their tracks. We can do all this thanks-living because of what God has done for us in giving us new life in Christ Jesus our Lord. That’s good news–even during Lent!
God grant all of us the strength and courage to hold to the good news even in the heaviest of struggles. Amen.
Last updated February 2008 by the webmaster.